The Republicans Would Love the CCP

[Truman123]

Lots of sons and fathers bonding in this thread.



Good to see.

 

[ChrisL]

Sweet cheecks, the GOP is a statist and progressive right wing party. It will work with ACA.

"Sweet cheeks?" Is that how you normally address other men? How do you know his cheeks are sweet anyway?

 

[JakeStarkey]

For men such as him, the name is appropriate.

 

[Truman123]

In 2008, after a long hiatus, the American rock band Guns N’ Roses released the album ‘Chinese Democracy’. Although it was received well critically, it is reported to have underperformed in the realm of popular appeal. The same might be said for the real deal. There have been and are many a brave intellectual fallen to the sword of that goal, but they seemingly constitute a minority. Front man Axel Rose, in an interview with MTV’s Kurt Loder, had this to say about the inspiration for the album's name: “Well, there’s [sic] a lot of Chinese democracy movements, and it’s something there’s a lot of talk about, and it’s something that will be nice to see.” Indeed Rose was correct in his assessment that people within China have started democracy movements in the past, most notably the ill-fated Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. Lesser movements, such as the ‘Democracy Wall’, an equally spontaneous yet futile endeavor eleven years prior, garnered less fame abroad. The main impediment to this cause is, of course, a strong central government, which spends heavily on internal security to put down any threat to its rule, but that is not the lone obstacle. There is a strain of reasoning that goes against China joining the free world, couched in rhetoric which is not used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) alone. The arguments are many, but none robust.



There exists a sufficient lack of evidence to bolster the claim that China has a civilization which can be traced back five thousand years. The first supposed emperor in this narrative, the “Yellow Emperor”, Huang Di, is often cited as the nexus, but no archeological record of this person has yet been found. That, however, is not the strangest kink in the story, at least not as it relates to the modern era. Many who would posit this tale would be quite comfortable, perhaps even in the next breath, in further claiming that China is not ready for democracy. This tired argument of an ill-prepared citizenry is not exclusive to the giant of Asia. Many are now repeating the canard in the wake of the Arab Spring, where countries with large Islamist populations are seemingly sowing the seeds of destruction in their own democratic institutions. It is, of course, true that religion has a way of entering an election and then shutting the door behind it. But to make these claims is to conflate the situations, as many of the Middle Eastern nations emerge from theocracies. This idea of ill preparedness is grating from the mouths of rulers, pundits, and laymen alike, for all are uttering the same derogatory concept: that adults must be coddled as children. The leaders stand alone, however, in proclaiming a patriarchal form of snobbery, for they declare their own paradigm, one in which their subjects must be channeled about like so much human chattel. In China, however, it is doubly pernicious given the protracted time line. At what point will the Chinese people be ready for a democracy if five thousand years was insufficient?



Another tack taken, one often regurgitated by members of the CCP, is that liberal democracy is a foreign concept not suited to the people of China. In this polemic approach, an eye is again cast to the ancient. China, it is asserted, has always been ruled by one authoritarian regime or another, be it from the tangible (the iron-handed rule of emperors or warlords) to the philosophical (the fealty-admiring philosophy of Confucius), it goes that the Chinese model of life is unbreakable and inadaptable to foreign concepts. But the Communist Party must know that walking this line is a dangerous endeavor, for, after all, has not their own philosophy of rule been imported? Karl Marx was not born in Beijing nor Stalin reared in Guangzhou, yet their doctrines have been implemented with wild abandon, even if so altered and corrupted to fit new narratives, within China proper. China existed as at least a den of capitalism, even without the voting, from the times of the Silk Road past even the century of humiliation.



The idea of a democracy being an unworkable, foreign model loses even further steam when looking to other corresponding examples. Hong Kong, which the CCP proudly claims today as being an example of ‘one country, two systems’, currently allows a very limited voting, although this itself would seem under some threat, as Beijing has begun installing its own politicians and attempting to introduce ‘patriotic’ themes into education. Hong Kong residents are thirsty for more, taking to the streets on the first day of this year to demonstrate for even more suffrage. In the summer of 2010, I personally witnessed street demonstrations in Hong Kong, where residents paraded down a busy avenue, bullhorns and placards in hand, in order to drum up support for foreign domestic workers. Hong Kong has not gone to pieces, as so many adversaries of Chinese democracy would have one believe is an eventuality.



There’s a good chance that if you are to use this Hong Kong example when arguing for democracy in the Central Kingdom, that you will hear the counter-argument alluding to the fact that those citizens, being British colonial subjects until 1997, were more suited to democracy. This would hold more weight if it weren’t for Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek, and his Nationalist Party, fleeing the victorious communists after defeat in 1949, landed on the shores of Taiwan en masse. Today, they make up a considerable portion of the electorate of that democracy. Especially pernicious is this argument to the detractors of Chinese democracy, for it bolsters support that even ethnic mainlanders are quickly able to adapt to a representative form of government. For nearly two decades have they practiced the right to vote.



When leaders fear elections, it is plain to see why. It is because they know that their rule is illegitimate in the eyes of the possible electorate. Their excuses are many, but there can be no doubt that a people under the boot of authoritarianism with the collective memory of government sans redress would throw off their captors at the first given chance. They would be crazy not to. It is an especially vexing twist of the CCP’s egalitarian aims that their engagement with capitalism has produced the exact opposite of their professed goal. Power and opportunity are disseminated from the few, starting with the princelings (fu er dai), and then extending downwards in tendrils of corruption. It is often said that one of two things must happen in order to produce change. The slow theory involves a growing middle class, more cognizant of international norms and its lack thereof, rising up after a few generations. The shorter one involves an economic crash that so infuriates citizens that they will no longer stand for authoritarianism and poverty simultaneously. Hopefully neither is necessary and the arguments against Chinese democracy fade back into the illogical ether from where they came, without force, which is something their leaders have yet to try.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

For men such as him, the name is appropriate.

You're all about the fudge packing brigade agenda starkey careful how you talk you've already been busted about not being a republican.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The Republicans Would Love the CCP


Last Thursday was the celebration of Mao Zedong's birthday in China, who would have been 120 if he could have stopped smoking and had found more young girls to bugger. It was a long day of hypocrisy and cringe-worthy in its ridiculousness. As I read through the banal praise heaped upon the great helmsman, who caused the death of millions of Chinese citizens, I was again reminded how much China had changed since his passing. From a disastrous implementation of communism to a completely hypocritical form of 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' has the country traveled. But getting with the present, as a foreigner living here is wont to do given the fact that all genuine news must be read online while using a VPN, I was struck by a new thought. This new monster of a Chinese economy, which has catapulted a nation from the brink of financial dissolve to the world's second largest economy in just a few short decades, is the only show in town of its kind. Furthermore, it occurred to me that authoritative capitalism of this sort would hold great appeal for the United States' Republican Party.


While it is certainly the case that the current GOP employs a hatred and fear of the other on national security issues, they are truly doing themselves a disservice by not aligning with the modern-day ruling elite of China. If they can figure out a way to work it, the Republicans could do themselves a favor by getting to know their counterparts in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a lot better. Perhaps they could all meet up in a sweatshop, or in the air-conditioned quarters above at least, well-sequestered from the smelly masses of degenerates below who should have gone to college. In this room, they might well find that their mutual xenophobia is easily-evaporated and was silly to begin with. Surely they will come to the inevitable conclusion that they have much in common on the business front.


First off is the authoritative aspect. Over the past few years, it has become a new conservative fetish in the States to push voter fraud conspiracy in order to shrink the electorate. Imagine if the GOP could simply kick out the jams and ignore voting altogether. Pesky things like gerrymandering and disassembling portions of the Civil Rights Act that ensure the minority vote would become relics of the past. And not only would just the minorities no longer get in the way, but all of those whom Mitt Romney so famously labeled 'the forty seven percent', all those week kneed liberals who obviously function in the voting booth purely out of white guilt and drug addictions, would be stopped short as well.


That taken care of, the pure greed games can begin in earnest. The gulf can at first be bridged by a trading of quotes which have ingrained themselves in the lexicon of the two countries. Imagine the chagrin of the Chinese if John Boehner were to let his compatriots know that Calvin Coolidge's most famous quote was, "the chief business of the American people is business." After Premier Li Keqiang recovered, he might well respond that Deng Xiaoping once said that, "to get rich is glorious." Surely then both would recognize that wealth is nothing to be trusted in the hands of the peasants beneath them, figuratively or physically.
Next they could move on to the subject of the minimum wage. Here, the Chinese could lead. Since their minimum wage is so laughably low at present, they could advise the Americans how a non-representative system of government really does make things better. That's all good and well, but how, the Republicans might ask, are we to get around the checks for safe working conditions also? There are unions, you know. But the Chinese will have answer for this one also. Simply incorporate all the unions into one meaningless body, label it something so patriotic that no one in his or her mind could argue against it, and viola. The last thorn in the side of business could then be discussed - the environmental laws. But the Chinese will again have an answer. Just do what we do - declare things like toxicity levels of the soil a state secret, and that problem will go the way of the dodo.


The Republicans at this point will be excited, but will show signs of trepidation still. Paul Ryan would tell the group that even without the vote, even when unions are effectively destroyed, there still might be some problems. "Mass demonstrations and protests would follow; I'm sure of it. A couple of years ago we had those Occupy Movement hippies ruining things," Ryan would tell his new friends. "After all, we have a constitution, ya know?"


"But that's the beauty of it all," President Xi would answer, slicking back his hair and making sure none of the dye had come off. "We've had a constitution this whole time too. That's an easy one. Don't call them dirty hippies anymore, that was your first mistake. Call them 'bad elements' and say they're anti-American and working for foreign governments."


"We did try that, sixty years ago. It was called the Red Scare," Ryan will reply.


"Ah, yes," Xi will answer. "We know it here as your golden age, the time when you made the most sense."

Dude, good weed!